Throughout my formative years, I
avidly followed the space program starting in my first grade year in May 1961
when I watched Alan Shepard’s 15-minute suborbital Mercury flight. I became a
huge fan of the space program and followed all of the Mercury, Gemini, and
Apollo missions as if I were just another member of the crew, all the way
through Apollo 17 when I was a senior in high school. Apollo 8 was a fantastic
gift in 1968, when Jim Lovell, Frank Borman and Bill Anders orbited the moon on
Christmas Eve and broadcast over their primitive black-and-white television
camera a message of peace for all of humanity. But the holy grail clearly
involved walking on the moon – and Apollo 11 owned that absolute
distinction.

Fifty years ago, during the wee
morning hours of the midsummer days of 1969, I read Arthur C. Clarke’s
fantastic science fiction novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, usually reading
in those early morning hours before going out around 4:30 am to deliver
newspapers in the dawn twilight. Looking up at the starry heavens, my mind only
half on the job of delivering newspapers, I mused over all of the advanced
civilizations I imagined to be up in that velvety sky. My mind was completely
captured by the implications of how going to the moon would change our
collective human destiny.

In the days leading up to that
historic moon landing, families would cluster around that first generation of
television sets, watching intently as Walter Cronkite described the momentous
occasion we were privileged to witness firsthand. The images were uncolored and
fuzzy and the audio was filled with static, but the magic of bringing the moon’s
surface to life intoxicated everyone. At 4:17pm EDT on Sunday July 20, 1969, the
first humans expertly and precisely landed on the moon, announced by Armstrong:
“Houston, Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed.” The last-minute dodging
of the boulder field can only be attributed to the human skill of proper
piloting by Neil Armstrong with only 20 seconds of fuel to spare. Armstrong’s
first steps on the moon occurred at 10:56pm that evening as 500 million people
followed from planet Earth, hearing him proclaim for the ages, “One small step
for man, one giant leap for mankind.” What an understatement!

This moment is arguably the
greatest historical achievement of humanity to date – mankind’s first
exploration of another heavenly body. Copernicus bravely defied the accepted
viewpoint of his time and challenged the idea that we were the center of the
universe by demonstrating that planets revolve around the sun. It’s easy now to
look back and see that event as the initiation of the Scientific Revolution
that led to our current amazing technological achievements. I believe that
historians of say, 5,000 years in the future, will come to regard our first
tentative spacefaring voyages off of planet earth to be of singular importance.In fact, some have suggested that the only name from our current epoch that
will merit inclusion in the history books of the future will be that of Neil
Armstrong – the first human being to step on a celestial body other than earth.

Many in my generation grew up
believing our entire lives would be spent actively pursuing the spacefaring
activities of a modern civilization. Those alive at the time will remember that
the United States and the Russians were locked in a “Cold War,” and President
Kennedy had set the agenda back in 1961, when he dedicated the United States to
a program of flying men to the moon, and returning them safely to earth, before
the end of the decade. Even today, we probably would have trouble scaling up
the technical abilities in rockets and equipment at such a quick pace.

The early program was decidedly
competitive, even military, in its nature. For both the Mercury and Gemini
programs, men would ride capsules atop ballistic missiles designed mainly for
hurling nuclear warheads around the world (the Redstone, Atlas and Titan
rockets). Only when we graduated to the actual moon-focused Apollo missions did
the astronauts ride atop rockets designed for this more peaceful purpose – the
Saturn V. A most effective rocket it was, 363 feet tall, weighing 6.5 million
pounds, its first stage burning 15 tons of liquid oxygen and refined kerosene every
second, hurling the 310,000 pound third stage/command-service module/Lunar
Excursion Module into earth orbit from which they then accelerated into a
trans-lunar trajectory. If so tasked, the Saturn V was mighty enough to boost a
many-ton payload off to one of the nearest stars, but the journey would take
hundreds of thousands of years.

Mission planners knew the importance of the operation, especially its symbolic power: they chose Neil Armstrong, a civilian test pilot, and formerly a naval aviator during the Korean conflict to lead the mission. He had proved his mettle by flying the X15 rocket plane almost 4,000 mph at a peak altitude of 207,000 feet, and was selected over his fellow military astronauts to lead the Apollo 11 mission. By the time of the actual Apollo landings, a more peaceful goal than the military race with the Russians, one shared with all of humanity, was reflected in the language of the commemorative plaque they would leave at Tranquility Base – “We came in peace for all mankind.”

Armstrong had already witnessed
harrowing escapes from death during his career as an astronaut. During the
Gemini 8 mission in 1966, after successfully docking in orbit with the target
Agena vehicle, their spacecraft went into an uncontrolled roll that became so
fast that Armstrong and fellow astronaut David Scott came within seconds of
blacking out before Armstrong was able to correct it. In May, 1968, while test
piloting the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle, he ejected with less than a second
to spare before the experimental craft slammed to the ground, exploding into a
fireball, as Armstrong drifted gently to earth under his parachute a few feet
away.

When the movie 2001: A Space
Odyssey came out in 1968 and depicted a spaceship landing at a city on the
moon, we all assumed that that was a reasonable version of our future –
that we would be the ones inhabiting those lunar cities by the early 21st
century. Alas, the fickle nature of the American public, as predicted by the
mastermind behind the Saturn V, Werner von Braun, judged the brief adventures
of the Apollo program to be sufficient for their desires, and dropped the ball
on further manned exploration of space. Thankfully, we now appear to be getting
back on track, not only for a return to the moon, but, more importantly,
towards the goal of building a sustainable colony on the planet Mars.

I’ve had the distinct honor and
privilege of meeting and talking with four of the highly skilled Apollo
astronauts, including Neil Armstrong himself, as well as Frank Borman and Jim
Lovell, both of whom flew to the moon on the moon-orbital mission of Apollo 8. Lovell
also commanded the Apollo 13 mission, a harrowing journey in which the
astronauts demonstrated the utmost skill in returning safely home after an
explosion crippled their craft en route to the moon. I also met Edgar Mitchell, who served as the
Lunar Excursion Module pilot accompanying Alan Shepard down to the Fra Mauro
Highlands they hiked during the Apollo 14 mission in February, 1971.

One of the great joys of my life
was having Edgar share his reflections on that monumental journey while I was a
guest in his home in 2012 (more fully shared in my book Living in a Mindful
Universe, co-written with Karen Newell, 2017). Edgar was so deeply affected
by his experience during the Apollo 14 moon-landing mission, especially by a
profound epiphany that occurred during the ride back to earth: He clearly saw
the fundamental presence of consciousness throughout the universe while
gazing out the window of Apollo 11’s command module returning from the moon. He
came back to found the Institute of Noetic Sciences, which to this day carries
out his bold mission to more fully explore the profound mystery of
consciousness itself – a frontier beyond outer space.

Edgar realized how closely his life
journey of elucidating the consciousness underlying the universe paralleled my
own observations of the primacy of consciousness resulting from my near-death
experience (NDE) due to severe bacterial meningitis in November 2008. Edgar
shared my vision that the coming awakening of humanity to the true nature of
consciousness would rival in importance the 16th century Copernican
revolution that had moved man’s notion of the center of the universe from the
earth to the sun. We are on the verge of another monumental scientific
revolution – one that validates the notion that we are all in this together.

I recall how all of the astronauts shared
similar observations about the fragility and undivided beauty of our earthly
home. Their firsthand experiences make them kindred spirits with the NDE
community I have come to know so well over the last decade — we all share the
sense of oneness and connectedness with each other. Those Apollo astronauts all
professed how seeing our lovely planet from space only heightened the sense
that there are no boundaries of countries visible, that the entire beautiful
planet is one we all share together. They also remarked on how fragile our
atmosphere is, just the tiniest blue sliver, tenuously embraced by the lands
and seas of our extraordinarily precious home planet.

One major impetus for pursuing
space exploration is to serve as insurance against our own extinction. During
the half century since the first moon landing, we have come to discover in
increasingly alarming fashion that our addiction to burning fossil fuels might
well render our planet uninhabitable in the next century or so due to the greenhouse
gas effects of all of that carbon dioxide our modern civilization belches into
the atmosphere. We must colonize other planets, if for no other reason than to
survive if we are foolish enough to wreck our own home.

A grander overall vision for the
importance of these spacefaring efforts is one of joining that much bigger club
of sentient life throughout the cosmos, a vision that was quite clear to me
during my coma journey. This grander vision of humanity as part of the
interstellar community is one more consistent with the maturity of humanity
suggested by the NDE community, where we bear responsibility for our choices
and acknowledge at every step the importance of our choices for the higher good
of all involved.

So, cherish the world’s reliving of the Apollo 11 moon landing a half century ago, and reflect on how such ventures tend to unify us, to fire our imaginations to engender the best future we can envision. We are truly all in this together, sharing this star-faring journey on the good earth, and we have the capacity as human beings to most fully enjoy this voyage through expressions of kindness, mercy and love towards our fellow travelers.

Those who want an in-depth, personal experience in reminiscing the Apollo 11 mission should go to https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/ to relive every second of the adventure.

Hello Eben,
I am certain that the way back to oneness with God is through the battered, beaten and bloody veil of flesh that clothed the essence known as Jesus, the Living Word of the Eternal Father.
Jesus said he was the door, or portal if you like?
Absolutely everything we see, touch and feel is made of Spirit which can take any form it is righteously commanded to. I guess we call that a miracle.
I do however feel that it is virtually impossible for the “moon landing” to have occurred. It is well known that there is a very strong connection between the masonic cult and NASA and my experience of freemasons is thay are secretive, full of guile and lies and feel that they are above the law.
I hope sincerely that you are not a freemason and I would ask that you confirm that you are not a member of this cult.
The Word of God admonishes us to “buy the truth and sell it not.”
The manifested children are not revealed as yet, but when they are, they will be in full control of the Matrix, just as Jesus was.
Good luck to everyone.

It is actually IMPOSSIBLE that the moon landings did NOT occur. Over 400,000 Americans participated in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space missions [all employees of NASA and subcontractors], culminating in six successful moon landings from 1969-1972. As a youth, I was totally captivated and followed every mission as if I were a participant. In 1967, I visited Cape Kennedy and the Vehicle Assembly Building [VAB] where Apollo rockets were assembled, and saw the incredible engineering involved in their design and manufacture. In my adult life, I was fortunate to meet and talk with four of the Apollo Astronauts (Neil Armstrong [Apollo 11], Frank Borman [Apollo 8] and Jim Lovell [Apollos 8 and 13]). I became close friends with one of them, Dr Edward Mitchell [Apollo 14 – see my blog posting on Edgar here http://ebenalexander.com/godspeed-edgar-mitchell/%5D, in whose home I stayed while speaking in Florida in 2013. I have held and smelled those moon rocks, which are unlike any rocks from earth. Perhaps this unfounded theory is related to Russians who saw this as a race to the moon, a race they never completed and therefore lost. But, we cannot possibly ignore the overwhelming evidence that the moon landings were absolutely real. For the record, the Russians have much to be proud of in their long space program, and I prefer to view them as co-participants in the missions to the moon [although those missions were on behalf of the entire human race, as the Apollo 11 plaque still resting on the Sea of Tranquility says: “We came in peace for all mankind.”] The moon landings are the greatest historical human achievement to date, and to buy into the idea that they were faked is unfortunate.

To be perfectly transparent in the issues you raised: I am not a freemason.

Hello Eben Dear, I am in two minds about the enthusiasm re the Moon landing. Of course, it was exciting to watch, to see us leaving Earth at such a speed with tremendous power and actually land. But, I feel we need to show that we can be trusted to look after this home, the Earth and her inhabitants; which includes all life. It had to happen, I am sure that God, designed this adventure to excite us into realising the magnitude of the Universe, and beckon us into “the party” to stretch our imagination and intent, to learn, that we are not the only apple in the pie. But at present the apple is going brown and diseased. I would dearly love to witness, more charity, acceptance of each other, bullying and greed to cease and honour for the ground we walk on, the waters and the sky above us. Money will be manifested to take on further exploration into space, why not use it for healing on every here, which is desperately needed. I am open to discussion. With love, Margaret.

Thank you for the connection to the live communications of the Apollo 11 mission (wow, it triggers my science geek inner self) and your hopeful thoughts here. I would like to think that there will be a new era of consciousness to unite us as we are in reality a small and fragile planet in the big picture. What triggers that realization, that collective “aha?” I don’t know and despair with the politics of today.

Eben Alexander III MD

Eben Alexander, MD, was an academic neurosurgeon for over 25 years, including 15 years at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston, with a passionate interest in physics and cosmology. He is the author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Proof of Heaven and The Map of Heaven. His third book, co-authored with Karen Newell, Living in a Mindful Universe, was released in October 2017. Learn more…